enjoy some tunes while you guzzle down all this emo content

Thursday, September 26, 2002

After careful review and consideration of your reasons for requesting an exemption from the School Uniform Policy #5150.1 for your child, a decision has been made regarding your request. The policy requires that the person requesting the exemption show he/she wants an exemption due to religious or a strongly-held belief, described as "a philosophy or set of moral principles that guides a person's decision about his/her life or lifestyle." The explanations provided in your written statements submitted on August 12, 14 and September 23, 2002, and expressed in our conversation of September 23, 2002, do not meet the requirements for exemption. Your allowing your children to wear uniforms for one venue but not for another demonstrates inconsistency and, therefore, does not qualify as a strongly held belief. Consequently, I am denying your request for exemption from this policy. If you wish to pursue your request further, you should contact the Mmphis City Schools office of the Board of Commissioners for a final ruling of your appeal (325-5447).If I can be of further assistance to you, feel free to contact me. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to your children having a successful year.

Sincerely,Dr. Richard Potts, DirectorZone 2 Schools"

so they denied me because mom put that i'd warn a uniform in the past on the little exemption form thing. i am incredibly upset with both of them. i don't think that wearing the goddam band uniform for one fucking day constitutes checking "yes" for "has your children worn any uniform in the past?" or whatever the damn question was. actually mom thinks that they denied it because morgan is wearing the uniform (after being bullied into it) and i'm the one requesting the exemption. either way it's ridiculous and i'm pissed off.sticky rain steals my smile.

Monday, September 23, 2002

well blogger just deleted my post and i'm really annoyed. it's taken me a while to come back and redo it but. at the time, mom had just come home (and gone back to work) with news of the "meeting." it turned out that she hadn't even had time to come by the house and get me. i'm really glad we didn't go film it. the anti-meeting consisted of mom giving the guy a (new) note, him reading it, and saying that they'd get back to us. mom did not seem very hopeful about it. she thinks she focused on all the wrong things. i'm going to post her note and you can tell me what you think:

"My concerns are:

1. The authoritarian atmosphere created by the school uniforms policy. Perhaps students are better behaved; they are also less exuberant.2. The "us" versus "them" attitude promoted by the wearing of uniforms.3. The increasingly "conformist" attitude towards thinking in classes. The school uniform policy is, contrary to what the school administrators say, fostering an attitude of "we should all think alike." This is especially troubling to me since Memphis, in contrast to other places I have lived, is a city that does not tolerate diversity of opinion well. The schools should be fostering individual thinking, not succumbing to peer pressure.

I have supported my daughter's decision to pursue exemption from the school uniform policy precisely because I believe that at fifteen, she should be learning how to think independently. I have encouraged her to make her own decisions, and not to follow the crowd. If I backed out now, what would I be teaching her? I believe that the process she is experiencing right now is an invaluable lesson about how the world works, regardless of what the outcome is. I am only sorry to see what she seems to be learning is that people in power aren't always thinking people, and that people in power sometimes use that power to bully others. A few teachers and administrators have seen the school uniform policy as an opportunity to throw their weight around.

While this policy may work in the short term, studies show it will not have any great long-term effects. We seem to be focused on the short term that we are risking the life lessons our children should be learning. Learning to make appropriate decisions about clothing would be better than instituting a narrow uniform policy.

4. The Memphis City School Board did not follow recommended procedures for implmenting the policy. There was no discussion with parent and teacher groups before this policy was established. The arbitrary notion that a school uniform policy would improve our scools is fallacious. School uniforms should be part of an in-depth adjustment of school environments.

Thank you for allowing my voice, and my daughter's voice, to be heard.

i wish. i am upset because mom is supposed to be here. well i'm sure that what happened is that when she came by here, dad had not brought me home yet, so she left without me, to go to our Board meeting about my uniform exemption. the case will not be NEARLY as hopeful without me there, or without a statement written by me there. i was going to do that but i decided it would be better if i was there. and obviously i am not, since it is almost 3:30 and i'm at home. this is quite distressing. i feel useless.

Tuesday, September 17, 2002

she's got the hottest trike in town

and you know she does. today was superstar day and i was kathleen hanna. i could have done a really good job, like if i decided to be her for halloween or something. i could get some temporary hair dye and some makeup and. i would write 'slut' really big on my stomach, instead of tiny. which is what i did today. just that and i wore my bikini kill shirt. lol nobody even asked who i was, and becca was the only person who i showed my slutiness to, but i don't think anyone else would have gotten it anyway.

Monday, September 16, 2002

so weekend. on friday, brittany and i had wanted to do something but she stayed home for waiting Button Boy to get online or call her or something along the lines of communication, which he did not. by the time i think she may have wanted to do something, i had made plans to go out with elise, robin, and brock. however, they never came to pick me (or brock) up. apparently elise and robin went on a walk and lost track of time or something. i went to bed fairly early.on saturday, the first thing i did in the morning was listen to our lovely Launch radio station so i suggest that you should to. it's pretty good. i can't exactly perfect it because i'm trying to only rate songs that we've done previously for music log. at some point, margaret graves called and asked if i was going to the cooper-young festival. no, i had not left yet at 1pm because brittany couldn't get a ride and i couldn't get in touch with laylee. margaret and i met at java cabana and watched part of Mutant Space Bats of Doom's show or whatever theyre called. i think that's about right. the band is bennett foster, zak baker, linton holiday, and hunter deacon. ask me about getting some stills, since i filmed a bit of it. (a very little bit.) but still. i found laylee, becca, katherine, and meg but i didnt really keep up with them. when i first saw laylee she hugged me HUGE and philip jacobson stared. it made me very happy. we were everywhere. margaret and i were trying to get some hardcore club footage. katherine was JUST ABOUT to go over and interview them (with my lovely questions) but they fucking left. it was terrible. of course, laylee and becca went with them so there went the party. we should have stalked them, i'm so serious. so we got a few random people to say "i hate the hardcore club" and that was great enough in itself. margaret and i sat in java cabana for a while and just talked and that was really nice. that makes me want to hang out with her (and meg and katherine warren and christie and heather) more often. at some point we walked to felix to meet my mom, who took us to auditions for the upcoming play, the momo's curse (by our own voice) at theatreworks. margaret said she really enjoyed the auditions (which are not real auditions) but that she thought she'd done a terrible job dancing. i can't say if it's true or not because i didn't see her (ehoaoeieowooiwi i'm terrible). her dad picked her up, and my mom dropped morgan and i back off at cooper-young festival for an hour because i wanted to see if anyone i knew was still there, which they were not. except for zak, who morgan talked to. it might have been more interesting if i had remembered to bring the camera that time but i had not. and then maybe if we'd had anything to eat besides cokes (in bottles!) but we did not. mom picked us up on tanglewood (we'd been sitting there watching this great dog jump practically over his fence) and we ate backyard burger. mom said that elise had called, wanting to know if i could come with them to cooper-young and mom said they were probably already there but i hadnt seen them obviously. when we got home, i called kevin's cell (amusing that they'd be together. jesus i really do treat them like they're married.) and he was just pulling up at elise's house, so i talked to her and she invited morgan and i to come watch the royal tennenbaums with her, brock, and kevin at his house. i accepted of course and it was gala event. for those of you who care, elise's hair is now Super Blond. after the movie (which i loved for the third time) kevin drove us home because he's the sweetest thing. i stayed up too late just sitting around online.sunday when i woke up, we went to the second auditions for momo's curse. katherine was there and that was happy. afterwards i sat around online a good bit and then did my homework. the end.today... well this week at school is spirit week so today was Wear What You Want Day. i was going to wear the uniform because it would have been ghastly funny but i don't have one. so i just wore jeans (surprise, surprise) and my bob & doug mckenzie shirt because they are my idols. margaret gave me back my comet gain cd. meg has my sleater-kinney one beat, becca still has doolittle by the pixies (which i desperately miss), and elise STILL has dig me out by sleater-kinney. margaret was reenacting her massive fall from this morning, at lunch today, with my backpack. and when she slung it over her head and made it fly she brutally crushed my comet gain cd case but thats ok becuase i'm sure there's an extra one somewhere. also at lunch, ted link came and sat down at our table but he only talked to sam (jazz band drummer guy that i think katherine warren likes) so that was really crazy. actually hardcore was brought up somehow and he said that he'd STARTED IT! meg asked if we could make a documentary about it but i dont think he heard and that completely sucks.

Friday, September 13, 2002

i had a lot of stuff planned out to say about my week. it's been really weird. but i'm not really in the mood. i just kinda wanted to post on friday the 13th. i can try though. uh.
monday was mediocore.
tuesday was reallly really bad. i felt terrible and everything that happened was awful.
wednesday was pretty shitty school-wise, but ... interesting to say the least, people-wise.
thursday was great at school, believe it or not, but after i got home it was downhill from there. i got less than two hours of sleep, therefore
friday was good. i was wired all day.
i went to davis-kidd after school on tuesday and this girl who i used to have second period with (her schedule changed like.. the day before) said hi but i couldnt think of anything interesting or conversational to say until after she left, though she did wave in the hall after sixth period on wednesday. and right after that, christie and katherine warren said hi. it was amazing. three people in three minutes! wow! i felt so popular. and believe me i was, OH I WAS. i talked to ted link a couple times and heard people talk bad about him a couple times and i have no idea what to make of the guy seriously. it's incredibly confusing. ted, if you're out there (wahahha) talk to me more so i can get a goddam grasp on your tedness. he said one thing to my face that annoyed me. i was standing with him, becca, and laylee and being my usual stupid-ass self and he said something like how i was so different from last year and i said i'd always been this way. he said, "but you just didn't have a chance to show it till now?" or something like that and i couldnt explain really. i still don't "show" it, it just depends who i'm around. i also heard some pretty ungood stuff about him and i heard that he did some pretty creepy stuff (even stuff including me, believe it or not)
on a much more interesting note, i uploaded brittany, morgan, and my music video so watch it now!!!!!

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

i stayed home from school today. my throat is murderous. morgan, brittany, and i spent the weekend shooting and editting footage for the "get up" (song by sleater-kinney) video that morgan is directing. i would upload five seconds of it for you, i really would, but there is no server right now. so instead. you can download the song here and imagine all the great things we are doing with it.in other news, i'm probably going to have to wear the uniform. i am very pissed off but i am glad that i at least tried.in other other news, i just listened to the plumb cd and i like it even less than i did when i first got it.if anyone knows where to get nice, free blog layouts/skins/templates/whatevers... please direct me. thank you.